WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance last year, overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the White House’s top lawyer, four people briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Trump’s decision in May so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been “ordered” to give Mr. Kushner the top-secret clearance.

The White House counsel at the time, Donald F. McGahn II, also wrote an internal memo outlining the concerns that had been raised about Mr. Kushner — including by the C.I.A. — and how Mr. McGahn had recommended that he not be given a top-secret clearance.

This is gonna get bumpy for ol Trumpito. Congress is a check on his power. Cummings and Pelosi and the new blood, they're not playing around with this mothergrabber. They will drag him for the next year and a half, right up to the next election. Those polling numbers of people who are losing faith in him, it won't dwindle to the mid-20s but it can dwindle to the point that even the built-in gerrymandering of an electoral college isn't that safe for him.